


Swimming with the Sharks until We Drown

by seijuro



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: M/M, Merman Akashi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-27
Updated: 2015-02-27
Packaged: 2018-03-15 10:17:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3443489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seijuro/pseuds/seijuro
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Somewhere, Nijimura thought this was how he would have loved to remember Akashi—with both water and flame alive in the whites of his eyes, with salt and ash roaring beneath the surface of his skin instead of blood.</p><p>But the world was not kind nor merciful, and neither was the sea.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Swimming with the Sharks until We Drown

**Author's Note:**

> crossposted from bps @ tumblr.  
> title from "vegas lights" by panic at the disco (a really catchy song tbh)
> 
> probably my fic baby? ive had this plot bunny for about a year now and it feels so good to have it finally put into words.
> 
> tumblr: seijuurouakashi  
> twitter: akanijis

**i.**

He was drowning.

The most important things for a pirate to learn (or, at least, the things that Nijimura could remember when there was salt in his throat and lungs that was burning its way up/down) were first, to respect the sea, and second, to fear it. He supposed in a way, it was funny (it wasn’t at all) that he only remembered to fear the ocean once she’d already taken him under. He was a pirate, a seasoned one (a fearless one), and the water couldn’t do anything to him which she already hadn’t. Except, Nijimura thought (remembered) drown him.

He wanted to close his eyes, but as far as he could see, there was nothing but blue-black and the shreds of light looked so (too) far away. He reached, but couldn’t grasp. The only thing between his fingers and below his skin was salt-water, and when it was in his mouth—when it was all he could swallow and all he could breathe—it tasted more than a little like blood.

The first thing he remembered was drowning, and the last was how he tried to scream before the water did it for him.

**ii.**

It was a dream, Nijimura told himself. it was a dream, a captain (a pirate)’s nightmare that’d manifested itself in his sleep, and now it would leave and now he would—

It wasn’t. It was, however, a miracle in itself that he was still alive—oceans took and took and took but never gave—but he wasn’t feeling very lucky. Yes, he was alive, but where was he? Where was his ship? Where was his crew? There were too many questions and not enough (any) answers. Even if he was alive, something told him he wouldn’t be for long. He would have laughed if his throat didn’t feel so  _raw_. If he was going to die, he’d rather it happen by his own hands than by the sea’s.

For the first time since he’d woken up, Nijimura noticed how sore he was. The slightest movement had his joints screaming and though he’d suffered worse, it  _burned._ When he looked himself over, he noticed two more things: 1) that he was covered in ugly, sharp gashes and 2) that they were treated.

He wasn’t alone. That was either a very good thing or a very bad one, and a part of him knew that the first wasn’t likely at all. Nijimura struggled to sit up, gritting his teeth.  _Pathetic._ They would have laughed (loved) to see  _proud captain Nijimura_ hardly able to move.

For the first time since he’d opened his eyes, Nijimura spoke: “who’s there?”—

—and for the first time, he got an answer. “I wouldn’t try moving if I were you.”

**iii.**

His name was Akashi, and he’d saved Nijimura’s life. If it wasn’t already obvious enough (it was), Akashi was the one who treated his wounds. Nijimura, who wasn’t without manners, thanked him, but thanking someone was entirely different from trusting them. His wounds were wrapped in bits of clothing the water left behind and covered in seaweed. (“Helps with infections,” Akashi had told him in a matter-of-fact manner when he complained about how it stung. “And I’m sure you’d rather be hurting than dead.”)

Akashi wasn’t wrong, but without a ship or any way of returning home (wherever that was), Nijimura could hardly see the point. He looked at Akashi, who hadn’t left the water since he’d seen him.

“Hey,” Nijimura said. Akashi looked up, and Nijimura noticed a cut that ran from below his collar bones to just above his navel. It stuck out so much more against pale skin. “You like the water that much?” It still hurt to speak, but he’d get better. Sometime.

Akashi regarded him with plain disinterest. “I don’t really have much of a choice,” he said, and that was when Nijimura saw the tail stretched out lazily behind him. It was large and long and Nijimura thought he’d never seen anything so  _red_ before. The harsh light made it shine, but even Nijimura could tell the scales were dull and it, too, was littered with wounds.

His mouth went dry. Merfolk were the subject of many a pirate’s tales, but he’d never,  _ever_ thought he’d see one with his own two eyes. There was no general consensus over whether they were real or not; anyone who knew the answer never lived to tell it.

(But the scales sold for a fortune. an entire tail could buy him a new ship, a new crew, a new life. An entire tail was enough for him to leave and never look back. He wasn’t stupid enough  _not_ to see the opportunity.)

Nijimura swallowed. “I didn’t think merfolk and humans had the best relationships. Why did you save me?”

Akashi pulled himself onto the rocks, revealing more cuts of varying sizes and intensity. “Well, you’re not wrong in that aspect.” Nijimura, for the first time, noticed how tired he looked. Merfolk weren’t superhuman, and whatever he could have used to properly treat his own wounds was on Nijimura. “I’m just returning a favour, I suppose.”

**iv.**

“Do you really not remember anything?” Akashi watched him from his perch on the rocks and Nijimura found himself wondering if he slept there. “Nothing at all?”

“None,” Nijimura said. He felt a lot better than he did earlier, but then again, that wasn’t saying much. If he could hardly bring himself to sit up, how could he expect to find food? Shelter? A way back? (He didn’t). “Besides… drowning. I remember drowning.”

Akashi hummed, running a hand down his tail. “I didn’t think so.” He looked up to Nijimura. “I can tell you this, though. There was a storm.”

His chances of returning home were becoming bleaker and bleaker, if possible. “What about my ship and crew?”

Akashi’s gaze was cold, somehow. “Gone, both of them. You would have been gone, too, if I hadn’t intervened.”

He’d never felt so helpless. It was like he’d just had them, and then in the blink of an eye, they were gone. A sick feeling began to rise in his throat—they’d trusted him, and now they were dead, and now he was not. “What’s this bullshit about a favour returned?” Nijimura asked when he could. “And why did you save  _me?_ ”

“You saved me. I saved you. Simple, is it not?”

He was tired of asking questions and getting no damned answers. “You should have just left me to die,” Nijimura snapped.

The silence left him pained. “That can be arranged,” Akashi said.

**v.**

He still wasn’t well enough to go looking for food or shelter on his own, and according to Akashi, it was better for him to sleep on the shore. As things stood, he wasn’t in any place to disagree.

“What do you eat?” Nijimura said.

Akashi blinked at him for some few moments. “Whatever I can find. Fish, usually.”

“They’re not… your cousins, or something?”

Akashi smiled, baring sharp, white teeth. “No. They’re not.”

He returned with fish, and there was enough driftwood nearby for Nijimura to set a fire. Akashi ate them raw; Nijimura watched as it painted his lips and teeth red. The fire-light made him glow, almost, and for someone of water, Nijimura had never seen anyone more like flame.

**vi.**

When Nijimura was able to move and do things without Akashi spoonfeeding him, the first thing he did was carve himself a spear. He caught (killed) a fish with it, and the spear was sharp, and the spear was strong. For a moment, it smiled, and it was hardly surprising to watch it bite through scale and bone with ease. He returned with a few fish of his own and the spear in his hands (and the little bit of red on it).

Akashi gave it the same look he gave Nijimura. “Did you really need that?”

Nijimura ripped a bit of his shirt off to wipe the blood. “You wouldn’t understand.” Between the quiet, it sounded like a promise.

(It was.)

“I suppose you’re right,” Akashi said, turning away from him.

**vii.**

He had a smoke signal set up when Akashi, from his perch on the rock, said, “Do you want to go home?”

Nijimura laughed. “What do you think?”

Akashi’s gaze was dark. “Give up.”

The hand nursing the fire stilled. “What?”

“You heard me,” Akashi said, eyes narrowing. “I told you to give up. If somebody was going to come for you, they would have already.”   

His hand gripped the spear so tightly it almost broke in his grasp. “So you’re saying I stay here for the rest of my life?”

“As that seems to be your only option, yes.”

Nijimura looked away from Akashi and continued to tend the fire. The sun had begun to fall and it made the waves inky. “I told you before. You wouldn’t understand.”

It was Akashi’s turn to laugh. “You seem to think interesting things about my kind.”

Nijimura faced him again. “Am I wrong?”

“Do you think I’m here because I want to be?”

Grip tightening once more, Nijimura said, “Go home, then.”

“I would if I could. We’re not too different, you and I.”

In a few quick moments, Nijimura moved from the shore to Akashi’s place on the rocks. He put a hand where hips ended and scales began, running it down Akashi’s tail. Akashi shuddered, but didn’t speak. Nijimura pressed the blunt edge of his spear to the white of his throat, hand still on his tail.

“I could kill you now, yeah? You wanna know how much  _my people_ will pay for your scales?”

“You could,” Akashi agreed, but Nijimura could feel his pulse leaping beneath his skin. “That wouldn’t get you home, though, would it?”

Nijimura turned back to the shore and threw his spear down where it broke.

**viii.**

“I saw you broke your spear. Rather, I saw the pieces.” Akashi looked sympathetic. “I thought you loved it.”

Nijmura ignored him. “Why haven’t you gone home yet? Can’t you swim?”

If Akashi noticed his evasion, he said nothing. “As a matter of fact, no. I can’t.”

He furrowed his brow. “Really?”

 Akashi was so  _calm_ about the entire situation, and honestly, it was unsettling. “Yes.”

“And you don’t care?”

“Don’t misunderstand. I care, but I know what can be changed, and I know what can’t. That’s what makes us different.”

The cuts on his body were dark and the skin around them bruised, and though Nijimura could see they were no longer bleeding, they hadn’t healed nicely. (Or, at all, for that matter). A lot of them looked so  _ragged,_  as if someone had taken pieces of broken wood and dragged them all over his body like they were a painter and he the canvas.

Oh, Nijimura thought.  _Oh._

He started, “The ship—”

Akashi cut him off. “Yes. The ship.”

Nijimura felt something odd; it wasn’t quite guilt, but it was sour and dry and crept along the same lines as guilt did. He hated it. “So you’re never going to be able to return home. Because you saved a human.”

Stretching his arms backwards, Akashi said, “That’s right. I didn’t know it would turn out like this, though.” He looked as though he was daring Nijimura to disagree, and he shivered.

“You’re not going to do anything about it at all,” Nijimura repeated, already knowing the answer. Akashi hardly seemed like the type to sit back and just let things  _happen_ , but apparently he was wrong. “At all.”

“We already went over this. That’s something I hate about you humans—you’re always so sure you can do something.” Akashi glared at him, voice thick with what Nijimura identified for the first time as resignation, and not annoyance. He was at once reminded of a dying animal, and it was honestly alarming. (Though, Nijimura thought, a dying animal was not too far off from the actuality of the situation.)

“And that’s what I hate about  _you,_ ” Nijimura said, standing up. He looked to the horizon where the sun had not yet begun its descent. “You won’t even try.”

The look Akashi gave him was unreadable, and after a moment, he realized he wasn’t looking at Nijimura but rather the waves behind him. He felt sick. “There’s some plant,” Nijimura said, wringing the salt out of his clothes. The motion left them wrinkly and stiff. “It’s practically invaluable on a ship, especially if you know how to use it. It treats wounds.”

“Human wounds,” Akashi said, but made no effort to stop him.

“Better than sitting around,” Nijimura shot back.

Staring at him, Akashi said, “Why are you doing this?” One of the cuts on his torso looked like the fine edge of a smile.

It was Nijimura’s turn to smile, and it was unpleasant. “It’s a pirate thing, you know. Having people in your debt.”

**ix.**

It was true that Akashi made no effort to stop him, but Nijimura knew he wouldn’t have listened even if he had. Nijimura had always been particularly hot  _and_ hard-headed, but he thought years on ships and seas would have changed that. He was wrong, and he had yet to see if that was a good or bad thing.

He thought at once of his mother. She was a strange woman blessed with a stranger combination of almost boundless optimism and common sense. Nijimura, for as long as he he lived, had only known people who were distinctly one or the other. Surprisingly, she was proud when Nijimura learned how to hold a sword better than any of his brothers. Her optimism set her sights high, and she had always been convinced Nijimura could land a spot in the guard. Nijimura then would have agreed, but the Nijimura now shook his head. Petty thieves had no place in the capital, and Nijimura, who could never stay in one place for all that long, would have killed himself first. Nevertheless, his mother would have hated him for it. Of all the lives her children could have had, the one she despised most was the one at sea.     

(Nijimura, for what it was worth, began to wonder if he would have preferred his mother alive and hateful to dead.)

When he looked back, the sun was already gone, and there was nothing left to listen to him save for the water.

**x.**

The answer. He already knew it.

**xi.**

Akashi was awake when he returned to the shore. Somehow, Nijimura expected otherwise, although he could not explain why. He was in the water, leaning against the sloping edge of the rocks.

Speaking against the night, Akashi said, “You didn’t have to.”

Nijimura, approaching him,  put down the armful of herbs wordlessly. The only way he was able to carry them back from the forest to the shore was by wrapping them in his shirt.

Akashi’s eyes were closed. “I know,” Nijimura said, unsure whether Akashi heard him or not. Nijimura wondered if it mattered, and somehow, it did not.

**xii.**

By the second day, Akashi had awoken again. He slept through the entire first day—he shivered (although subconsciously, Nijimura was certain) when Nijimura applied the make-do poultice, skin cold and clammy—and Nijmura was concerned that his only chance at getting home would die, if nothing else.

He looked considerably better. His skin had lost its translucence, had taken back the bruises around the wounds. They hadn’t fully healed yet, but Nijimura of all people understood that they took time.

“How are you doing?” he asked, eyeing Akashi’s tail.

“Alive,” Akashi said.

It was enough.

**xiii.**

Within a week, he was fine—Nijimura could see it in his eyes as much as he could through his skin and tail. The ship left scars, of course, but Nijimura thought it was a fine trade for the wounds it took instead.

“I’m in your debt now,” Akashi said, gazing at him. Sweeping his eyes over Nijimura, he added, “You’re sunburnt.”

Nijimura stared. “Don’t see how you’re not.”

Akashi shook his head. “Humans.”

Sitting next to Akashi, Nijimura slipped his legs into the water. It felt cool against his skin, and he’d never been more grateful. “Do mermaids heal faster too, or something?”

Only the upper half of Akashi’s torso was out of the water, and he rested it on the rocks, tail moving behind him. “It depends, of course.”

Nijimura frowned. “Is everything complicated with you mermaids?”

To his surprise, Akashi only laughed. It was bright. “Funny that a human would tell me that. If anyone’s complicated, it’s your people—all these things like gods, and fate. Heaven, and hell.” The words sounded foreign when he said them, but Nijimura could and did not care.

“Mermaids don’t believe in that stuff?”

Akashi shook his head fervently. “Of course not.” He pulled himself onto the rocks and Nijimura found himself looking up at him. Sunlight washed over him in shades of gold. “Those are  _human_ things.”

He stared at the scars that spread themselves across his torso in jagged bits of white. He wondered what Akashi would say, wondered what Akashi would  _do_ if he were to trace his finger along them as if they were a map. “What do your people believe in, then?”

Akashi thought for a moment before saying, “Song, the ocean, the sun…” Wrinkling his nose in distaste, he shook his head again. “Things you wouldn’t understand.”

Even the water lay quiet when Nijimura said, “And love? Do you believe in that?”

There was something fluttering between the net of his ribs when Akashi said, “I think I could.”

Somewhere, Nijimura thought this was how he would have loved to remember Akashi—with both water and flame alive in the whites of his eyes, with salt and ash roaring beneath the surface of his skin instead of blood.

But the world was not kind nor merciful, and neither was the sea.

**xiv.**

When Nijimura asked him if mermaids actually sang, Akashi was amused. Truth to be told, Nijimura was expecting a worse reaction, but he wasn’t exactly in any place to complain. “Definitely,” he said. “Finally, something you humans have gotten right.”

Nijimura couldn’t stop himself from shaking his head. “You gonna keep that up?”

“What?”

“Insulting humans.”

“Oh,” Akashi said. “Why wouldn’t I?”

Nijimura shook his head again. “What do you sing?”

Akashi frowned as if it was a weird question; Nijimura supposed it was. “Anything and everything.”

“Do you lure sailors to their doom with song?”

Akashi looked at him from beneath dark lashes. “Only a few.”

“And how do you do that?”

“Like this,” Akashi said, and  _sang._  There were no words. None were needed.

**xv.**

Akashi looked at him one day and said, “Do you still want to go home?”

Nijimura hesitated. “Of course.”

He’d become accustomed to life on the island, but he missed life on the waters, and he missed the life beyond that.

“Yes,” Akashi said, and then as if to himself: “Of course.”

Nijimura walked to where he rested by the shoreline. “What is this about?”

Akashi looked up at him, mouth set in a line. “Nothing,” he said at last. “Just something I’ve been thinking about.”

Furrowing his brow, Nijimura sat beside him again. He was about to speak when Akashi did it first. “You have to leave eventually. Humans can’t live like we do.” Was he said? Nijimura couldn’t tell.

He swallowed the lump in his throat. “We’ll think about that when we get there.”

Akashi was quiet. “I suppose.”

Even on the island, even for the evening, it was chilly. He shivered. “And you? Could you go home?”

The scars were beginning to fade. In the dark, they looked like scratches. Nijimura estimated with enough time, they would be gone altogether. “Yes,” Akashi said.

“Do you want to?”

Akashi said nothing.

As he sat there, the waves pulling and pushing at the shore with their foamy teeth, he smelled something foul. But beneath it was something dark; something ominous. It smelled like threat. It smelled like promise.

**xvi.**

The ship came during noon. The captain said he approached the island because of Nijimura’s smoke signal, but he’d learned to recognize greed, and it came from the captain in almost overwhelming waves.

“You’re Nijimura?” Hanamiya, Nijimura believed his name was, smiled. Something about it made him sick. The rest of the crew had already unloaded, and they were sprawled out on the sand with their ship right at the edge of the shore. Never before had he felt the discontinuity between his life on the island and his  _actual_ life. It was frightening, and he knew he walked a thin line. “I’ve heard things about you. Everyone thinks you’re dead.”

He sized Nijimura up as if he was a piece of meat. “Well, I would have been,” Nijimura said, not bothering to take care of the sharp side of his voice. All he could think about was Akashi (scales, after all, sold for a fortune), and it was eating him alive. “I’m glad you came when you did.”

Did he want to go home? What was home, anymore? “Likewise,” Hanamiya said, bowing. He hadn’t taken his eyes off Nijimura once. “How have you survived so far?” He saw Hanamiya’s eyes sweep over where the storm left scars—nobody would ever be able to treat a would so nicely on their own.

“Luck,” Nijimura told him. It wasn’t exactly a lie. The last time he’d felt so numb was when he awoke on the shore that first day.  _Funny,_ he thought. It wasn’t.

“You must have a lot of it.” Bored but not satisfied with the answers, Hanamiya walked away from Nijimura to join the rest of his crew. The dark made them look hostile, and it left only the whites of their teeth clear. “We leave in two days, Nijimura.”

Of course he wanted to go home. The island had nothing for him anymore—he’d die eventually. Something reminded him that he would have died on or off of the island.

Feeling bile rise in his throat, Nijimura said, “Thank you. I look forward to it.”

The night was hollow without Akashi’s singing. He heard something rising, somewhere, and recognized it as water against shore.

**xvii.**

Little whispers. Nijimura tossed and turned in his sleep.

 _“Yes, but he says there isn’t—_ ”

“ _—no way he could have survived otherwise. They said there was—”_

 _“—but they’re not_ real— _”_

A clap of noise and the whispers stopped. “We’ll just have to find out.”

**xviii.**

He approached Akashi when dawn broke. “You have to go home now,” Nijimura said, struggling to keep his heart in its place. There was no guarantee when they would wake up. “There’s a ship.”

Akashi spoke with the same eerie calm Nijimura remembered from when they’d first met. “You came on a ship.”

“Please,” Nijimura said, desperation making his voice waver, “this is  _different._  They’ll kill you.”

He didn’t want to leave, but he could not stay. “Are you going with them?” Akashi asked.

“I have to.” Nijimura couldn’t look at him.

The salt bled poison. He wanted to scream. “Do you?” Akashi said at last.

“You knew this,” said Nijimura. “You knew I had to.”

Akashi’s gaze was almost furious. “Maybe not, but I knew you wanted to. That was enough.”

It took everything Nijimura had not to yell, and it was only to keep Hanamiya’s crew from awakening. “You  _know_ I can’t stay, and neither can you.”

“Aren’t you the one who told me trying is better than doing nothing?” He heard Akashi letting out a staggered breath.

“Some things can’t be changed.”

Was it fair? Of course it wasn’t. Pirates never played fair. “Would you have stayed? If I asked?” Akashi said finally. His voice was quieter than Nijimura remembered.

“I can’t.”

For a moment, Akashi looked hurt, but in the next, it was gone. “You’re not even trying.”

He was only half aware of what happened next. He half-remembered his chest nearly bursting, but he did not remember the rupture. “I’m trying to save you. If you’re so eager to die, go ahead and do it already.”

Part of Nijimura wondered if Akashi would cry, but it was foolish.

“Alright,” Akashi said, almost laughing. “Alright.”

Nijimura watched him go, and it was not until afterwards that he unclenched his fists. His nails left crescents in his palm, and the water screamed.

**xix.**

Hanamiya was smiling when he boarded the ship. They ended up delaying the departure for another day, but Nijimura didn’t care—days and nights seemed to pass in hazy, battered colours. Each morning he awoke with a bitter taste in his mouth.

“Are you finally glad to be returning home?” he asked, leaning against the side of the ship. He had yet to stop smiling. Around him, the crew leered at Nijimura. “It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”

The words tasted dull. “That’s an understatement.”

Hanamiya laughed, but it was lacking in his eyes. “No worries. Your room is under the deck.”

“Thanks,” Nijimura said. He knew, without a doubt, that he did not mean it. The water inside him let out a brilliant, shrill cry, and fell silent.

**xx.**

The bottom of the deck smelled of saltwater blood. It was so dark that even the small windows gave no hint of light at all, and Nijimura put the lantern on the table beside him. The ship rocked and swayed.

When the light finally fell upon the floor, he saw little puddles of blood.

He couldn’t breathe. There was a large, unmoving mass in the corner where light did not reach. Nijimura picked up the lantern again, praying that he did not drop it.

With the lantern in his hands, he could see more blood. It was  _everywhere,_ and faintly, someone singing.

“Nijimura,” Akashi said, and the singing stopped. His chest rose and fell with the effort it took to speak.

There were gashes, raw and festering and  _everywhere._ Nijimura’s eyes went down to his tail, and he nearly threw up. So many spots of skin were left where scales had been ripped off, and the ones that remained were dull as clouded glass.

“I told you to leave,” Nijimura said, voice hoarse.

“Yes,” Akashi agreed. “Yes, you did.” He offered Nijimura a smile, chest wracked with coughs when he tried to speak. “I suppose I wasn’t fast enough.”

Nijimura ripped bits of his shirt off and pressed them to the cuts. The cloth soaked up the blood greedily, and there was  _too fucking much—_

“It doesn’t matter,” Akashi said. “I’ve lost too much—”

“—Stop talking,” Nijimura interrupted. There was too much, and it was too fast, and everything was a haze and—

Akashi’s voice was soft. “It doesn’t matter. I told you, didn’t I? The difference between us.”

Was he crying? Did it matter? “I couldn’t—you should have—”

“If I asked you? Would you do it?” Akashi looked at the far side of the room. “They left a knife there.”

“You can’t make me do this,” Nijimura said. “You can’t.”

“You’re right,” Akashi agreed again. “I can’t make you do anything. But I’m still asking.”

Nijimura got up. When he returned, the knife was heavy as lead in his hands. Akashi’s eyes were closed. “It wouldn’t have worked out. You understand, don’t you?”

“Yes,” Nijimura said, and he meant it.

He sat beside Akashi, pulling him into his arms. Flinching, Akashi said, “And I have one last thing to ask of you.” He hesitated for a moment. “A song. I sang you one, remember?”

“Alright,” Nijimura said, letting the boat lull them both for a moment. He pressed the blade into Akashi’s mid-back, opened his mouth, and began to sing.

He did not stop until the arms clasped around his neck fell limp.

**xxi.**

“Did you sleep well?” Hanamiya asked once Nijimura showed up on deck. “We should reach home in a week, if the winds are cooperative.”

“Yeah,” Nijimura said.   _Home._ For the first time, he looked at Hanamiya right in the eye. “I’d appreciate it if you gave me a few moments.”

“Sure,” Hanamiya said, ever gracious. Watching his retreating figure, Nijimura did not bother the urge to hit his face again and again until he bled.

Water leapt at the sides of the boat, and behind him, the island seemed little more significant than a speck of dirt.

“Why didn’t you leave?” Nijimura asked, but the ocean did not answer. 


End file.
